Alas, Babylon

At first Randy thought someone was shaking the couch. Graf, nestled under his arm, whined and slipped to the floor. Randy opened his eyes and elevated himself on his elbow. He felt stiff and grimy from sleeping in his clothes. Except for the daschund, tail and ears at attention, the room was empty. Again the house shook. The world outside still slept, but he discerned movement in the room. His fishing rods, hanging by their tips from a length of pegboard, inexplicably swayed in rhythm. He had heard such phenomena accompanied earthquakes, but there had never been an earthquake in Florida. Graf lifted his nose and howled.

Then the sound came, a long, deep, powerful rumble increasing in crescendo until the windows rattled, cups danced in their saucers, and the bar glasses rubbed rims and tinkled in terror. The sound slowly ebbed, then boomed to a fiercer climax, closer.

Randy found himself on his feet, throat dry, heart pounding. This was not the season for thunder, nor were storms forecast. Nor was this thunder. He stepped out onto the upstairs porch. To his left, in the east, on orange glow heralded the sun. In the south, across the Timucuan and beyond the horizon, a similar glow faded. His sense refused to accept a sun rising and a sun setting. For perhaps a minute the spectacle numbed reaction.

What had jolted Randy from sleep he would not learn all of the facts for a long, a very long time after were two nuclear explosions, both in megaton range, the warheads of missiles lobbed in by submarines. The first obliterated the SAC base at Homestead, and incidentally sank and returned to the sea a considerable area of Floridas tip. Ground Zero of the second missile was Miamis International Airport, not far from the heart of the city. Randys couch had been shaken by the shock waves transmitted through the ground, which travel faster than through the air, so he had been awake when the blast and sound arrived a little later. Gazing at the glow in the south, Randy was witnessing, from the distance of almost two hundred miles, the incineration of a million people.

Alas, Babylon
Pat Frank